


The Case of the Scaredy Wolf

by mrdcoolblue



Series: McCall Stilinski Paranormal Investigators [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And it happened a long time ago, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Monster of the Week, Private Investigator Stiles Stilinski, Protective Pack, Suicide mention, but no one you know, can be read as a standalone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrdcoolblue/pseuds/mrdcoolblue
Summary: “What?” Isaac drew back a bit.“Ghosts. I’m researching ghosts. How to document them, how to talk to them, and how to get rid of them. You know that old mansion on the other side of the Preserve, the Thornewood Estate?”“You mean that creepy inn that kids would dare each other to spend the night in?”“Exactly. The new owner hired MSPI to deal with its haunting problem,” Stiles stated proudly.. . .MSPI’s latest case involves some good old ghost hunting. Stiles is raring to learn all he can about lingering spirits, and Scott is game, but Isaac seems a little more spooked than a supernaturally strong werewolf ought to be. Then it all hits the fan when one ghost takes a special interest in the fragile human of the group.
Relationships: Isaac Lahey & Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski
Series: McCall Stilinski Paranormal Investigators [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1489469
Comments: 20
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of MSPI! Although, you should know it can be read as a standalone. Any fic in this series can.

After Stiles’s double knock, the door opened to reveal an ashen-faced man. As soon as he saw them, he promptly sagged in relief and swung the door fully open.

“Mr. Fields?” Stiles assumed, offering his hand to shake. “I’m from McCall Stilinski Paran—”

“I know who you are,” the man interrupted. He glanced nervously out to the trees. “Please come inside quickly.” Then he disappeared into the house. 

Stiles stood on the front porch for a few moments, blinking at the abrupt exchange. He turned to look at his companion, and Lydia narrowed her eyes in return.

“What?” he asked. “He was very different over the phone.” When she didn’t answer or avert her scrutiny, he just gestured inside. “Well? We don’t want to be rude or anything.”

Lydia gave him another meaningful look and muttered, “You owe me,” before walking inside.

Stiles and Lydia had driven to the old Thornewood Estate, the giant mansion turned bed and breakfast isolated clear across the Preserve from the old Hale House. 

Derek’s family home was much more well known among the Beacon Hills locals, partly because of the prestige of the Hale family name and mostly because of the sensational news when most of the family burned with it. But Thornewood, named after Elias Thornewood, who’d built it like a hundred years ago, was just as big, just as imposing, and just as atmospherically situated in the middle of the woods. Elias Thornewood must have been really keeping up with the Hales.

Stiles and Lydia followed Mr. Fields to the kitchen table. Stiles had looked the man up right after they scheduled this appointment. He himself wasn’t native to Beacon County, but his great-uncle had been the most recent owner of the Thornewood Estate’s B&B that is, until the old man died and left him the mostly rundown property. Stiles remembered seeing online that Mr. Fields worked in real estate; he even had a website and everything. His picture there had looked warm, healthy, lively. A real departure from the jittery man wringing his hands in front of them.

Lydia got settled, perched on a kitchen bar stool with her lips pursed, before Stiles went right down to business. “So, Mr. Fields. When we spoke on the phone, you said you had concerns that your house was, uh. . . .”

“Haunted,” the man answered, staring into the middle distance. “But this isn’t my house. Uncle Frank ran the place for as long as I remember. I haven’t been here in over thirty years, but I used to visit during summers when I was a kid. I just . . . I just want to be rid of it now.”

Stiles and Lydia met eyes. Although her frown could have said a thousand mundane things, like, “How dare you waste my time,” or, “I can’t remember if I left the porch light on,” Stiles’s active and pessimistic imagination couldn’t help but assume she was thinking something closer to, “Are you sure you won’t regret taking this job?” Thanks, Lydia. Real helpful.

Stiles reached into his messenger bag and pulled out some papers he’d already taken notes on (thanks, Scott, for leaving the water bill out when he was desperately searching for writing material) and a notebook and pen. “You gave me some accounts you’ve experienced already, but today is more about us getting a quick feel for the place. To see if Lydia here can sense a presence.” The guy was already obviously nervous, but Stiles couldn’t help but wiggle his fingers ominously.

Mr. Fields turned to Lydia, eyes wide. “Are you psychic?”

“Not a psychic,” Lydia snapped, and the guy flinched back a bit. 

Stiles butted in. “I believe the PC term these days is ‘medium.’” He chose to ignore Lydia’s pointed look; he wasn’t about to get into a lecture about the finer points of banshees versus psychics or whatever other terms existed. “We figured we’d do a quick round of spirit writing. If anything is around for Lydia to pick up, she might record a message or some thoughts from a spirit. We could do it here, but we might get better results in a room that has had a lot of activity.”

Mr. Fields nodded solemnly. “I know just the place.” He stood and beckoned them to follow.

Walking through the house, it was obviously old-fashioned, with dark paneling, low ceilings, and narrow hallways. But to Stiles, as he took in the sunlight streaming through the windows and the scenic views of the forest outside, there was no way Stiles could ever imagine this place haunted by restless spirits on a warm, sunny afternoon such as this. The carved details on the molding were beautiful. The whole house had a regal sense of history about it. And with its easy access to nature, he had no trouble picturing families and couples spending a few nights at the B&B. 

Assuming they get to the bottom of the ghost issue, he really hoped that whoever buys the property would keep it open as a bed and breakfast. He’d enjoy spending a night or two here.

When he wasn’t dead broke. Or investigating ghosts, of course. 

Mr. Fields stopped outside a closed door. “Most of the . . . activity . . . happens at night, but this is where most sightings take place. It was converted over fifty years ago, then renovated in the eighties. It was once a parlor, then I think a changing room, and before that part of the property’s original master bedroom.

Stiles opened the door and peeked inside. Right now it looked like one of the guest rooms, on the smallish side, so the old rooms might have been divvied up for more guest space. It was tidy and neat but a little musty, like it didn’t see much use. 

“Can you tell us a little more about—” Stiles turned to let Lydia and Mr. Fields enter before him, but Mr. Fields had only backed further into the hall.

“Come find me on the back porch when you’re done,” he said, already inching back the way they’d come. “Just be quick about it. I plan to be out of here before sundown.” Then he was gone.

“Well that’s not encouraging,” Stiles quipped, staring back into the room as if he might suddenly see what had the realtor too scared to even enter. It still looked like a normal bedroom.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Lydia said as she shrugged past Stiles into the room. She was gripping her arms, as if she felt some sort of chill in the air.

“Do you sense something?” he asked seriously.

“No,” she denied, “I just have things to do.”

Luckily there was a small desk in the room, even if—alongside a queen bed, a floor lamp, and full-sized wardrobe—the limited space was cramped as a result. Stiles pulled a page from his notebook, set it on the table, and gestured for Lydia to take the chair. He then plopped down on the bed, staring intently.

Lydia, holding the pen loosely in her left hand, drew some self-conscious doodles for a few minutes before she shot him a look. “You know it doesn’t always happen on command, right.”

Stiles bobbed his head. “Of course not. Do whatever banshee things you need to do to open up your third eye or whatever.”

Lydia made a face. “Your staring is making me nervous.”

Stiles spluttered. “What? It’s just little old me. I’m the least judgmental person. I always have your back.”

Lydia raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

Stiles sighed. “Fine.” He scooched around on the bed until he was facing the wall. “Some people would call this absolute confidence in your abilities.”

“Or expectations that can be disappointed.”

Stiles’s back was turned, so he couldn’t see the small playful curve of her lips. Instead he fidgeted and grumbled something about not being disappointed, just mad right now.

Unable to watch Lydia channel the spirits or whatever, Stiles took out his phone and started surfing. As excited as he was to investigate a haunted house, he had to first be sure that this was the real deal. Derek, or rather his sizable collection of books on the supernatural, insisted that ghosts were real but true hauntings or even sightings were a lot more rare than a lot of people liked to believe. 

Banshees were one of the few creatures with regular contact with beyond the veil, but Lydia’s powers were hardly reliable, and historically she was a lot better at predicting death or finding recently dead bodies than she was at finding long-dead spirits. So, even if there was a ghost or two lingering around the property, there was no guarantee that Lydia would even pick up on them.

But Stiles had to find _some_ way to determine if this was a real haunting, to scratch that itch he had ever since he read that ghosts were possible, and right now Lydia was his best hope. If she found nothing, he might dig a little more before giving up entirely. It would be disappointing but within the realm of possibility.

But if she ended up finding something. . . .

“Lydia?” Stiles suddenly realized that she had been completely silent for several minutes now.

He turned around and found her hunched over the paper, scribbling furiously.

“Lyds?” Stiles said again. He scrambled to the edge of the bed. “Did you sense something?”

Lydia didn’t answer. She didn’t even acknowledge he’d said anything. She kept writing, using wide looping lines that filled up the paper; he wasn’t even sure if anything would be legible. Her whole body was rocking with her efforts, and Stiles was starting to get seriously concerned.

“Seriously, Lydia.” He approached cautiously. “If this is all an act to scare me for being a pushy asshole and dragging you out here, then lesson learned.” 

Lydia ignored him. She just kept scribbling.

“I’ll only get you to do creepy supernatural things once a month at most. And each time will include heavy bribery in the form of unpronounceable coffee drinks, shopping trips, and depressing romantic movies that make me cry.”

Lydia was pressing down on the paper so hard it started to rip through. 

“I won’t even bug you about my math homework. I’ll learn Latin so you won’t have to translate ancient documents anymore.”

Soon the hollow sound of scratching across wood had Stiles wincing. She was starting to carve straight into the surface of the desk. Oh god, this wasn’t even their furniture to destroy.

Stiles decided that they’d had enough. He had to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. He reached forward to grab her shoulder. “Lydia, pl—”

Her head snapped up, and Stiles flailed backwards when he saw that her pupils had turned an unnatural milky white. He pulled himself back then lost his balance and with a loud clatter landed ass first on the hardwood floor.

“Stiles?”

Stiles looked up with wide, startled eyes to see Lydia blinking rapidly, pupils now back to their usual brown.

“L-lydia?” he asked hesitantly.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Why are you on the floor?”

Stiles hastily scrambled to his feet. “Oh you know, I trip over my own legs all the time.” He stared intently at her. “Are you okay? What was that?”

She shivered involuntarily. “I’d really like to go now. If we do, I’ll treat us to smoothies.”

Stiles found himself nodding. “Okay.” She wasn’t acting like anything was wrong, but after that episode, Stiles was in no hurry to make Lydia do anything. He let Lydia sweep out of the room without a fuss. 

Just as Stiles turned to leave, he looked at the desk where she’d been writing. The paper was in complete tatters, and as he suspected, none of the pieces held scribbles that were remotely legible. Lydia had obviously tapped into something, but maybe spirit writing had been a bust. He swept the pieces of torn paper into one hand.

Or maybe it wasn’t a bust. Beneath the paper were some thin lines scratched deep into the wood. Lydia hadn’t moved her hand in any way to signify recognizable words, but somehow the layers of scratches combined to form two clear words: _my boy_. 

* * *

Not long after their visit to the remote Thornewood Estate, Lydia went on a weekend trip with her mom, saying she hadn’t time to bond with her while she’d been back from MIT. 

Stiles, on the other hand, spent the weekend in a full-out research spiral.

No matter how much Lydia protested, there was no doubt in Stiles’s mind that not only were there restless spirits haunting Thornewood but they could be contacted, maybe even communicated with. This wasn’t just some cheesy abandoned mine or lame historic castle straight out of a Scooby Doo episode. (Okay, maybe castles are actually awesome.) This was no goofy TV show where supposed ghost hunters don night-vision selfie cameras and jump at every little shadow. 

No. This was an honest-to-goodness haunting by spirit or spirits unknown. In an old, and not at all that creepy, house near the Beacon Hills Preserve.

And Stiles was a chump if he didn’t take full advantage of this opportunity.

So he locked himself in Miss Pi with his laptop, some snacks, and his trusty murder board and researched everything he could about ghosts and Thornewood, including the estate’s history and any noteworthy people or events it might have witnessed.

Like Mr. Fields had hinted, the property had been in his family for the last several decades. Apparently his great-uncle on his mother’s side had been the one to convert it into a bed and breakfast in the late 70s. The man himself had lived like a loner while he took care of Thornewood and its guests, but after a few more prodding questions from Mr. Fields, Stiles found out that as a kid he was often sent over by his parents to help out during summers. He spent most of the time doing manual labor and yard work for his aging uncle, and the house was almost exclusively reserved for guests’ beds only. Mr. Fields did have his fair share of unexplained happenings, like creaking floorboards and voices when no one was around, to forever turn him into a believer. But it was anecdotal at best, and hardly substantial for what Stiles was really looking for.

However, that didn’t mean he got nothing from Mr. Fields’s testimony. Most of the experiences he had and the stories he’d heard from other people over the years seemed to fit certain patterns. A child’s voice giggling by the lake. A shadow man staring at sleeping guests in Room 5. The sounds of a weeping woman echoing through the halls. When Stiles cross-referenced these patterns with reported deaths on the property over the last century, he could find some concrete personalities behind the stories.

Before Mr. Fields’s uncle had converted Thornewood Estate into a bed and breakfast for Beacon County tourists and locals, it had changed hands several times off and on. Before that, some old-fashioned Hollywood stars had owned it as a getaway for their actor friends. Then, before a few years of brief occupation by a rotating list of rich families, lived the original owners, the Thornewoods.

Elias Thornewood had built the house in the 1920s to compete with his business rivals, Beacon Hills’s own Hale pack. Of course, it wasn’t common knowledge that the Hales were werewolves, and Stiles wondered if they were just as infuriatingly gorgeous as the Hales Stiles knew today. Stupid supernatural good genes.

Elias hadn’t lived long at the mansion he had dubbed his descendents’ ancestral home, though. Construction had run into several setbacks, the Great Depression struck only a few years after it was complete, and eventually the Thornewoods lost their fortune and were stuck with only the house to their name. After a few more years living there in isolation, his only son died, his wife Josephine soon followed, and then him not long after. It was something out of a gothic novel. Certainly ghost stories would be a natural follow-up to that.

The history of the property was fascinating, and Stiles was completely consumed looking up county real-estate documents and scans of decades-old newspapers. The research consumed all his time, and for nearly three days he didn’t sleep a wink. The only food he ate was when Scott would shove a plate under his nose between shifts at the clinic, and even then it sometimes took hours before he saw it.

When Stiles showed no signs of letting up even when the long weekend was over, and the Sheriff and Melissa even started to notice, Scott decided to host an intervention.

Stiles was hunched over his laptop, typing furiously, eyes a little blurry after squinting at the screen for a solid eight hours.

Scott stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor of their apartment. He was clenching his jaw in that way he does when he’s concerned about something. “Hey, Stiles,” he asked gently. “How you holding up?” 

Stiles didn’t look up from the screen. “Great, Scotty. Just in a chat with a couple of witches in Romania. They have this special way they make a charm that I think, with a little adjustment, can actually dispel a spirit and push them to the next plane.” He paused, reading over something he’d just typed. “While you’re up, could you pour me coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

“It’s like 9 pm, dude,” Scott protested, even as he walked to the kitchenette. As soon as he got to their cheap coffee maker, though, he stiffened and wrinkled his nose. “Dude, how recently did you make this? It’s disgusting.”

Stiles finally looked up. “What? Oh. I must have gotten distracted since, uh,” he glanced at the time and date in the corner of his screen, “Friday.”

“This is my point,” Scott insisted. “You told me to tell you when you get obsessed. When was the last time you rested?”

“This isn’t even obsessed,” Stiles protested. He scratched his head, realized a piece of red string was dangling from his hair, then pushed it aside. “I have everything under control.”

Scott raised one eyebrow. “It was two days ago. That was the last time you slept longer than two hours.”

“You haven’t been watching me the whole time. Maybe I stopped when you were. . . .”

“Even I don’t need your heartbeat to hear that lie. Come on. Isaac’s coming over to watch a movie. Why don’t you take a break with us?”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “You just want me to fall asleep to whatever artsy crap Isaac’s picked out.”

“There’ll be pizza,” Scott prodded, not even bothering to deny the accusation.

Now that he thought about it, he was pretty hungry. He might have skipped a lunch—or three—when he got focused. “But the research. . . .”

“Can wait a couple hours. We haven’t hung out all week.” And then he pulled them out: Scott’s trademark puppy dog eyes. They smothered feuds, changed minds, and made even the iciest hearts melt.

Stiles felt his resolve waver. “Fine, one movie. And you bottomless pits better keep your wolfy paws off my share of the pizza.”

Scott cheered and wrapped Stiles in a quick hug. “Whatever you say, boss.” When he pulled back again, his nose wrinkled and he looked toward the door. “Speaking of which . . . it’s open!” he called out.

The front door swung open, and even Stiles’s human nose could pick up the scent of molten cheese. Isaac shuffled inside bearing a small stack of pizza boxes. He’d likely just got off his shift, even if he’d already changed out of his delivery uniform. Frankly, though, Stiles was having a hard time concentrating until he could get that hot pie in his hands.

On his way across the threshold, Isaac lovingly patted the doorframe and murmured, “Thanks for having me, Miss Pi.” It was a sweet endearment that Erica had come up with whenever she entered their apartment. When she did it, Stiles smiled warmly at the little joke. When Isaac, Scott, and sometimes even Boyd did it, Stiles had to keep from combusting under the sheer adorableness.

In order to preserve his manly dignity, though, Stiles made grabby hands for the pizza boxes. “Is that pepperoni?” he asked. “I always knew there was a reason we kept you around.”

“It’s meat lovers, actually,” Isaac said, relinquishing the boxes. “And I see the creature has finally emerged from his research cave.” He eyed the piles of scattered papers covering the living room. 

“I’m going to ignore that comment because you brought meat lovers.” Stiles paused to accept a plate from Scott, and then he dug in and flung a full half of one pizza onto his own dish. “So what crap are we watching?”

While Scott loaded up the other plates, Isaac nudged halfheartedly at the mess of papers. “Depends on if there’s anywhere to sit. What are you even researching? The desolation of earth’s trees?”

“A, it’s all recycled paper that will go right back into the recycling bin if I don’t save it. B, I only printed out about a tenth of the information on my computer.” He hugged his laptop protectively against his chest while also shielding the remaining pizza from Scott’s wandering hands. “And C, ghosts.”

“What?” Isaac drew back a bit.

“Ghosts. I’m researching ghosts. How to document them, how to talk to them, and how to get rid of them. You know that old mansion on the other side of the Preserve, the Thornewood Estate?”

“You mean that creepy inn that kids would dare each other to spend the night in?”

“Exactly. The new owner hired MSPI to deal with its haunting problem,” Stiles stated proudly. 

“Are we going to exorcise it?” Scott asked dubiously. “Don’t we need a priest for that?”

Stiles shook his head. “Exorcising is more for demons than hauntings.”

“So you’re going to don a onesie and suck it into a portable containment device?” Isaac snarked. And dammit if Stiles couldn’t tell whether he’d made a _Ghostbusters_ or a _Danny Phantom_ reference just then.

Stiles gaped for a second before he found his train of thought again. “No. I’m going to spend the night and find out what it wants.”

This time it was Scott’s turn to ask, “What?”

“Lydia was able to get it to engage briefly,” Stiles continued, now on a roll. “If we go back there with the actual intent to communicate. . . .”

“Doesn’t that sound like a little much, though?” Scott asked.

“. . . Then who knows what it might be able to tell us.” Stiles started flipping through the papers he’d been reading last. “There are centuries of people trying to communicate with the dead. It even became somewhat of a fad in the 1800s. Mediums, seances, spirit phones. Even Arthur Conan Doyle, the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes, believed he could find a way to speak to the dead.”

“You don’t say,” Scott said, trying to cut in. “Hey, the pizza’s getting cold.”

But Stiles just barrelled on through. “I’ve been digging into the history of the property, and it’s rife with stories of hauntings. Whole generations have lived and died there. So who’s to say that something might not have stuck around? The last forty years alone it was a B&B. It’s seen its fair share of strange characters.”

“Stiles—”

“Combine that with the supernatural quagmire that is the Preserve and Beacon Hills. According to my calculations, at least three ley lines pass through some part of the property,” he said, pulling out a map he’d marked with lines and scribbles, “which gives it the perfect conditions to be a hotbed of—”

“Stiles!” Scott flung a sauce-covered mushroom at his head, and it hit the side of his cheek with a soft splat. “You’re doing that obsession thing again. We agreed you’d take a break, remember?”

Stiles pointedly bit a large chunk out of his pizza and stared Scott down until he swallowed. “But yeah, the next logical step is to be there at night, when the paranormal activity is at its height.”

“When are you going?” Scott asked.

“Tomorrow.”

Isaac frowned silently as he fingered some of the printouts bearing Stiles’s more liberal use of the pink highlighter. He looked paler than usual. “Did you ask Derek about this yet?”

Stiles spluttered. “Ask Derek about what? He’s out of town visiting Cora.”

“Still a good idea to call him,” Isaac countered. “He knows all about the supernatural, and I have a feeling he wouldn’t approve of you flinging yourself at something you don’t know much about.”

Stiles’s eyes narrowed. “Oh he wouldn’t _approve_ , would he?”

Isaac continued. “Are you even sure it’s a ghost? What if it’s some other creature? What if it means people harm? What if it actually has some destructive capabilities?”

“That’s not—”

Scott frowned. “It sounds like it could be dangerous. You shouldn’t go alone.”

“But science, Scotty.”

“I can call Derek right now,” Isaac offered, pulling out his cell phone. “We can see what he has to say about you jumping in headfirst by yourself.”

Now _that_ was going a step too far. Panicking, Stiles blurted out the first thing he could think of. “But I won’t be by myself. Scott will be there.”

“I will?” Scott asked.

“You’ll be there,” Stiles affirmed, tossing one of his pepperonis at Scott’s head. He used his werewolf reflexes to catch with his mouth, the jerk. “MSPI was hired, so both halves of MSPI will be there. With you watching my back, it’ll be completely fine.” He fixed Isaac with a firm stare. No need to call anyone. “With Lydia, Scott, and me, we’ll be in and out. Bing bang boom.”

Isaac only seemed mildly placated, but Stiles took what he could get and then insisted they get on with their movie. As he suspected, Isaac had brought something completely high brow and artsy. And despite Stiles’s mild irritation, he ended up passed out, sandwiched between the two werewolves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Each chapter will be posted every three days, so look out for updates. Leave a comment if you like it, or even if you just want to say hi.
> 
> Also, I did a small illustration to help motivate myself. Should I post it in Chapter 2? That's where the scene it corresponds with is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The suicide mention is in this chapter. It's not graphic or colorful, just three short words, but please be careful if that might cause you distress.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/191671251@N07/50808000128/in/dateposted-public/)

Isaac was still there the next morning, looking completely smug when Stiles shuffled out of his room looking like he’d died and then been reanimated on only half juice. Whatever. Stiles wasn’t sharing his poptarts with the jerk anyway.

When Scott came down dressed for work, Stiles remembered with a curse that he was Scott’s ride to and from the clinic and he still had to make the charms before they went to Thornewood for the night. When Stiles suggested that Isaac drive Scott to Thornewood after work so they would have plenty of time to set up, Isaac seemed hesitant at first. But Scott turned his puppy dog face on him, and Stiles was pleased to learn he wasn’t the only one susceptible to Scott McCall’s big brown eyes.

Now, hours later, charms done, research compiled and arranged, Stiles was leaning against his Jeep at Thornewood Estate while the two werewolves fussed with supplies in the back of Isaac’s car. On return trips to get another load of groceries or sleeping bags, Isaac was casually looking at his own phone. Every time, he spared the occasional eyebrow toward Stiles angrily typing into his phone and blowing out sporadic puffs of frustrated air.

Lydia wasn’t coming.

In fact, Lydia had completely bailed and announced via text that she was flying back to MIT. At that moment, Stiles was thumbing through a rambling rant about precisely why Lydia should stay in town and see this through. 

_Think of the science.  
You have the ability to speak with a real ghost.  
Now tell me that doesn’t pique your interest._

_It doesn’t_ , was her short text reply.

 _Look, you have to do this_ , Stiles typed. _Isn’t the mark of a scientist—_

Stiles’s manic typing was interrupted by a call, Lydia’s number flashing across the screen.

Before answering, Stiles took a moment to glare pointedly at Isaac, trying to convey silently that he better not use his supernatural hearing to eavesdrop on his private conversation. Either Isaac didn’t catch the message or he didn’t care enough to eavesdrop, because he just continued typing on his own phone without seeming to pay attention.

Stiles answered the call. “Lydia, you have to be here.”

“First of all, I don’t _have_ to do anything,” Lydia’s curt voice said down the line. “Second of all, I’m already at the airport. I have to get back to school.”

“Lydia,” Stiles whined. “You’re like a genius. You could probably do even MIT coursework in your sleep.”

“True, but I’m not returning for my classes,” Lydia said. “I have to get back to work on my thesis. This school may be a slouch, but I certainly am not.” Leave it to Lydia to call one of the best schools in the country a slouch.

“You couldn’t push your flight back one day?” Stiles argued. “This is important.”

“No, I’ll tell you what’s important, Stiles Stilinski,” Lydia interjected. “My work is important to me. My access to the fancy computers, some of the most powerful computational machines in the world, is important to me. Finishing my thesis in two years so I can get on a high-profile think tank, win my Fields Medal, and spend my days dreaming of equations and how they can help people are important to me.”

Stiles clutched his phone quietly. Lydia always kept herself calm and collected, so this was new to him.

“You’re completely immersed in supernatural business, Stiles. I’ve always admired how you throw yourself in the thick of things,” Lydia said, softer. “But that’s not me.”

She took a deep breath. “Ever since we were sixteen years old, the world has stopped making sense. All the formulas I thought I knew—be popular, have something pretty on your arm, and reach for success.” Stiles decided not to snort at the thought that Lydia kept Jackson around in high school because she wanted “something pretty” on her arm.

“Suddenly it was all kanimas, creepy magic trees, and me thinking I was losing my mind because the universe decided it would be hilarious if I was a banshee who could literally predict death.” She trailed off, and Stiles could feel her pain. They’d all been worried and frustrated as she struggled with her power. 

“I refuse to let it define my life,” Lydia said. “I’m sorry, I know this is the opposite of how you act and feel. But you have to understand that this is not where I’m needed.”

Stiles did understand. This life filled with werewolves, murder, and a new monster seemingly every week was not for everyone. Stiles was so gung ho about everything, he rarely stopped to breathe and acknowledge the toll this life took on everyone, including himself. Once he and Scott were thrust headfirst into the supernatural, he never considered having a life outside that. He should have figured that maybe some members of the pack wouldn't feel that way.

Stiles took a moment and swallowed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have been so pushy. Of course you should go back to your work.”

“Stiles. . . .” Lydia sounded a little sad, like she worried she’d disappointed him. Lydia, of all people.

“None of that,” Stiles clucked. “When you get back to Boston, you better have your game face on. In the future, when you win that Fields Medal and I’m your plus-one to the ceremony, I want to still look good in my prom tux.”

Lydia breathed out a short laugh. “I don’t care what size you are. When you’re my plus-one to the acceptance ceremony, you’re getting a new tux.”

“Because you need something pretty on your arm?”

“Idiot.” But her tone was soft and warm.

Stiles smiled and tried to wish her a safe flight, but then she interrupted. 

“Just promise me one thing.”

“What is it, Lyds?”

“Don’t go back to that Thornewood house.”

Stiles breathed out, looking around guiltily as if Lydia was about to bust him right there and then. “Why?”

Lydia’s voice was serious. “I don’t know exactly what I felt, but I didn’t like it. When we were there, inside that house, all I know is that I felt the urge to scream.”

Stiles swallowed and gazed up at the building in front of him. Suddenly, in the dwindling twilight, the house seemed imposing and forbidding. The windows on its face were like dark portals into something you don’t want to see but always dances just beyond your periphery, like movement in the corner that you never quite catch. 

There was no doubt in his mind that this towering house was haunted by spirits; his visit with Lydia proved that in his mind. But the urge to scream, as reported from the mouth of a banshee. . . . Now that had a completely different meaning altogether.

“I’ll see what I can do,” was all he was able to promise before they exchanged their farewells and hung up.

Stiles stood there lost in thought for a few moments, trying to decide what he should do, when Isaac appeared, his brow furrowed in concern. “Are we repacking the Jeep?” he asked. Obviously he had been listening in.

Stiles took one steadying breath then whirled around with a plastered expression he hoped exuded confidence. “Nope,” he said lightly. “We may be down a member during this excursion, but Scott and I will proceed as planned.”

Isaac’s brow furrowed further. “If Lydia can’t come, maybe you should take a few days to reconsider your strategy.”

“Nope, same strategy,” Stiles quipped. Even without Lydia all reports say the house is plenty active at night. He tried to grab the box Isaac was holding, but he just danced out of his reach. 

“What about more research? You always love research.”

Stiles stopped and let out a frustrated huff. “You saw the state of Miss Pi yesterday; even Scott agreed I overdid it on the research. Now what are you driving at?”

“Your plan included three people. What if you and Scott get overwhelmed?”

“Yeah, well, Lydia’s still not coming. What are you gonna do about it, tall guy?”

“I’ll join you tonight,” Isaac blurted out.

Now Stiles really did stop. “What?”

Isaac looked considerably paler, even a little twitchy, but he doubled down on his statement. “Yeah, I’ll be your third. Yours and Scott’s.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes, completely doubtful about Isaac’s quick turnaround. “No, that’s okay. Scott and I have this handled.”

A corner of Isaac’s mouth curled down. “Just let me come.”

But Stiles dug in his heels. “Why are you so adamant?”

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Scott quipped, finally intervening. Stiles decided not to answer. Scott obviously figured out something was tense at the moment, but Stiles was bent on out-stubborning Isaac, because there is just no possible way, shape, or form that Isaac was even coming close to—

“I’m tapping in for Lydia,” Isaac said to Scott. The son of a—! “I’ll be with you guys tonight.”

Scott’s face lit up with his trademark thousand-kilowatt smile. “Awesome, dude! Glad to have you on the team.”

As if that sealed the deal, Isaac shot one quick triumphant smirk toward Stiles then proceeded to carry the box he was holding into the house.

Stiles scowled. Whatever. So what if Isaac hung around tonight. Lydia may have been the perfect expert in communicating with the dead. But with the combined supernatural company of two werewolves, maybe he’ll be able to salvage tonight after all.

* * *

By the time the three of them got everything unpacked and set up, night had fallen.

Stiles had wholeheartedly stated the priority that night was contact and record, so in the spirit of that (pun intended), he borrowed some rudimentary recording equipment from Danny. Despite the needling and the promise of home baked brownies, he only managed to get a digital sound recorder and a years-old camera and tripod, plus threats on pain of death if either of the shitty pieces of equipment were damaged or lost.

Now, Danny was technically away at school and could not physically be there to show them how they worked. He promised it would be easy, but his emailed instructions were anything but. The tech was old and temperamental, like a crotchety old man, and it took longer than Stiles cared to be able to run a test recording, make sure they had memory cartridges on hand, and to create their base of operations in the first-floor dining room, which mostly involved spreading out three sleeping bags, carefully organizing Stiles’s research printouts, and properly categorizing the food and snacks so they wouldn’t immediately disappear down the werewolves’ gullets. 

Stiles was putting the finishing touches on everything when Scott wrinkled his brow like he just realized something and asked, “I thought the job was to make the ghost leave.”

“Yeah, why are we messing with cameras and evidence then?” Isaac chimed in.

Lord, the two were already ganging up on him. “Because science, that’s why. We have the charms to actually banish them, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to talk with a ghost.”

“But shouldn’t we be trying to get rid of it for the client?” Scott asked.

Stiles shrugged. “You could say that the best way to get rid of a ghost is to find out what it wants, and you can’t do that without talking with it. Besides,” he added, “think about the good and useful things we could learn.”

Scott and Isaac shared matching blinking looks.

Stiles’s hands became animated. “The transition from life to death is like the ultimate mystery. Poets and philosophers dedicated their lives to pondering it. What if spirits have some supernatural knowledge that could help us deal with the shit that regularly visits Beacon Hills? Like, maybe they have some info about what the Nemeton is. Or why Peter was able to stage his own resurrection. Or, based on how Lydia’s power typically manifests, what if they have some insight on the future? Or heck, even insight on their past can give us valuable knowledge.” 

Then Stiles paused, and his gaze slid away from Scott and Isaac, slightly embarrassed. “Or wouldn’t you like to see if it’s possible to just talk with people who used to be here?”

Scott seemed to ponder this last question from an academic perspective, but Isaac looked more stunned, still pale, and Stiles would bet anything that he was much more dangerously close to guessing his real meaning.

Isaac did a curt but uneasy nod.

Oblivious, Scott smiled. “All right, where do we start?”

Stiles grinned, hoping it didn’t look too manic. “We start with the most haunted room in the house.”

* * *

Stiles, Scott, and Isaac stood in the small guest bedroom, good old Room 5, crowded around the desk they’d pushed to the center of the room. Scott looked optimistic and game. Isaac seemed uneasy and alert. And Stiles, in addition to being squashed up against the big heavy wardrobe, felt downright mutinous.

After he’d gleefully explained their first activity of the night and started to lead them toward the room he’d visited with Lydia several days before, Scott had pulled out his surprise of the night.

Scott claimed that Stiles had been getting too many head injuries recently, to which Stiles tried to wave off as a rumor and hardly true. But Scott had insisted, and Isaac, the traitor, took Scott’s side. So, under the guise of concern, Scott brought a little extra protection.

And Stiles was now forced to wear a stupid lacross helmet indoors. He looked ridiculous.

“Ridiculous,” he huffed under his breath.

But Scott was hardly chastised. “Safety first,” he intoned.

Isaac wasn’t trying too hard to stifle some snickers, so Stiles took that as his cue to begin before they once again ganged up on him.

Stiles took out the spirit board he’d packed. It was an old cheesy toy he’d begged his dad to buy him when he was a little kid. He and Scott had gotten some thrills out of it when they were both preteens and had no idea that werewolves, ghosts, or anything supernatural actually existed.

When Scott saw the toy, he let out a nostalgic gasp. “Dude, you still have the ouija board after all these years?”

Stiles grinned. “Of course. Those slumber parties were epic, so I had to immortalize it for posterity. Who knew we’d actually find a use for it?”

“You guys played with this thing?” Isaac sounded incredulous.

Stiles snapped up to him, expecting some douchebag comment about this cheesy toy—to be fair, they were kids at the time—but his scathing retort died on his lips when he actually caught Isaac’s expression.

Isaac was eyeing the board with apprehension. His face was pale, and he didn’t seem to like that thing at all.

“Wait a minute, are you scared of ghosts?” Stiles asked loudly. At Scott’s slight flinch, he felt a little bad for being so blunt, but he let the question hang in the air.

Isaac stood there, a faint blush quickly replacing his pallor. Stiles could hear a faint ticking from some old clock nearby. 

“I just think it’s irresponsible to play with something like that,” Isaac spluttered.

“Dude, chill,” Stiles said. “We were like twelve. We got it at Walmart.”

“But you don’t know who or what you could’ve contacted.”

“Once again, I plead twelve years old. Plus, what do you think was going to happen?”

“Anything!”

Stiles dug his heels in. “It’s a kid’s game. Of all the weird twelve-year-olds spelling out ‘farts’ on these things. . . .”

Sott exclaimed, “I _knew_ that was you!”

“. . . What makes you think anything happened to us?” He was so not going to mention that they lived in Beacon Hills, where against all odds freaky things tend to happen all the time.

“Because I’m scared of ghosts!” Isaac blared. “You happy I admit it?”

Yes, Stiles totally was. “Wait, you used to work in a cemetery, and you’re scared of ghosts?”

Isaac let out an aggravated sigh. “It’s different, okay? Sure, I spent a large chunk of my time at the cemetery, but the only things haunting it are mourners. People aren’t people when they’re dead and buried in the ground. It’s all empty shells and ceremony for the living.”

Then he crossed his arms and furtively looked around the room. “Here, though, it’s different. People lived and died here in this house. There’s evidence of their presence everywhere. Even now, I can smell the essence of people who haven’t set foot here in years.” His voice grew softer. “You look at houses like these, and you can almost feel the many lives that went through here, feel their influence even now.”

A breeze fluttered the window curtain, and Stiles shivered. He supposed there was something uniquely spooky about these old houses.

“Well,” Stiles said as he clapped his hands together, causing both Isaac and Scott to flinch at the noise. “Business is business, and we gotta get moving. Luckily we are much older and wiser now.” He chose to ignore Isaac’s brief snort.

Stiles pulled out the plastic planchette, which will act as the cursor to glide across the board and point out each letter. “I already treated this thing with some herbs from Deaton that should promote communication and block bad vibes. Now, my original formula had emphasized protecting against bad vibes when Lydia was going to be our own spirit hot spot, so I had to adjust some ratios to boost our communication. But I’m sure it’ll work out fine.”

Isaac did not look too confident. “And if this doesn’t work?”

“Then we go home disappointed and sleep deprived, but at least we tried our best.”

Isaac nodded, seeming to gather his resolve. 

“So how does it work?” Scott asked. “Are we calling out to any spirits who can hear us?”

Stiles shook his head. “This is where my research comes in. I’ve identified three active entities over the years, and I think one of them is most likely our ghost. So—” He coached Scott and Isaac to each place a hand with him on the planchette.

“I want one of you to call out to the first ghost.” He slid a sheet of paper across the table. “I’ve already got some questions picked out. Now if one of you could please. . . .” He gestured with his free hand.

“Why do you want _us_ to do it?” Isaac squeaked.

“Because you’re both supernatural. I’d intended Lydia to do this part because of her unique powers, but maybe you guys being werewolves might still attract some activity.”

Isaac visibly gulped, but Scott came straight to his rescue, sliding the paper closer to him. “I can do the first spirit. Oh look, she’s a little girl. How cute. Oh wait, no, that’s sad.”

Stiles resisted the urge to facepalm while Isaac eyed Scott like he’d just grown two heads.

At Stiles’s urging, Scott started reading. “I call upon the spirit of Carolyn Walker, known as Little Linny. Are you there? It says here you liked to play around the pond out back. Oh shoot, no, you drowned when you snuck out unsupervised. I’m so sorry!” Scott sounded genuinely distressed.

“Ask her some questions,” Stiles prompted, tapping at the paper.

Scott perked up. “Yeah, what’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

Completely off script. Now Stiles really did facepalm.

“Mine’s double chocolate. I used to go nuts for it when I was about your age. What kind of games did you play? Did you have any siblings or play with neighboring children? Who was your best friend?”

During Scott’s tirade of questions, Stiles watched the planchette under their fingers intently, looking for the barest twitch. Nothing happened, even as Scott waxed poetic about the pros and cons of sandboxes versus playgrounds. It didn’t look like this was their ghost.

“Maybe we should try the next one on the list,” Stiles said, sliding another paper onto the table. “Maybe give Linny a little break.” He looked to Isaac. “Think you can handle this one?”

Isaac frowned, but he dragged the paper closer to himself and looked at it. “This is a twenty-year-old who hanged himself.”

“Well you didn’t exactly call dibs on the little girl who doesn’t answer,” Stiles shot back.

Isaac’s mouth was a thin line, but he began reading, and Stiles had to credit him for having only a slight wobble to his voice. “I call upon the spirit of Jason Richards. I’m sorry you died like this. Are you the spirit terrorizing people right now?”

All three of them stared intently at the planchette. Stiles willed this to be the guy. He wished with all his might that would get genuine contact, and the force of his concentration felt like the piece of plastic was almost wobbling.

No wait, it really was wobbling, because slowly, under their fingers, the planchette made a steady arc across the board until it stopped over the word NO.

Isaac let out a strangled noise that almost sounded like a sob.

“Tell me this isn’t you guys, because I’m going to be so pissed if this is a joke,” Stiles whispered.

Scott gaped at the board. “I was about to ask you the same thing, dude.”

Isaac half whimpered.

“Ask him something else,” Stiles hissed.

“C-could you tell us who is scaring people?” Isaac said.

Again, the planchette slid slow and even across the board. YES.

“Who?” Isaac gasped.

This time the planchette slid over the letters, and Stiles focused hard on what it spelled out.

S-T-R-A-W-B-E-R-R-Y.

What? The three looked at each other in confusion. 

“What does that mean?” Scott asked.

Stiles’s brain was working a mile a minute. “Could it be a reference to Lydia and her strawberry blonde hair? Or maybe it’s a nickname for someone who used to live here?”

But the planchette kept moving, already starting to spell another word.

T-A-G.

Stiles felt like his brain was going to explode.

H-O-P-S-C-O—

“Oh!” Scott suddenly exclaimed, startling the two others. “Linny! I like strawberry ice cream too!” The grin on his face was dazzling. Leave it to Scott to befriend a long-dead ghost.

“It’s nice to meat you, Linny,” Scott continued, smiling up at the ceiling as if she was lounging up there. “We just wanted to ask about the ghost who’s been scaring people.”

The planchette slid over and rested on NO.

Scott winced. “No, you don’t know who it is? Or no, you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Or no, it’s not a ghost?” Stiles asked.

The planchette briefly darted away before it came back to rest on NO.

“Please, give us a little more. What do you mean?”

NO.

Scott was getting nowhere, and Stiles getting frustrated, so he barked out, “Tell us. What do you want?”

Suddenly the planchette jerked harshly, straight out of Isaac’s grip. He pushed himself violently away from the table, eyes glowing gold in alarm.

Stiles and Scott held on for dear life, but only just barely kept their grip as the thing moved jerkily across the board in short, violent bursts completely different from the smooth slides it had done before.

Stiles kept his eyes glued to the thing as it flew from letter to letter, memorizing where it briefly paused before it continued its mad descent.

M. Y.

The table and surrounding furniture began to rattle and shake, and Isaac threw up his arms in front of his face like he thought he was about to get attacked.

B. O. —

Then a loud thunk startled Scott, who jolted away from the planchette as it swung to the next letter toward the end of the alphabet. 

Stiles didn’t have a chance to see where it landed next before Scott called, “Watch out!” and another deafening thunk rattled the whole room.

Before Stiles could figure out why Scott was leaping toward him, he caught the barest glimpse of something bronze sliding off the top of the wardrobe above him.

He didn’t have time to move, and the thing landed straight on his head, sending a bone-jarring vibration through the helmet he wore.

Stiles swore—holy crap, that hurt—as the impact knocked him straight to the floor.

“Stiles!” Scott called in alarm.

“I’m okay,” Stiles said, still on the floor. The thing that fell off the wardrobe had landed next to him: a heavy brass statue. It looked like the helmet did its job after all. Oh man, there was no way Scott would let him leave Miss Pi without it now.

As Scott rushed to Stiles’s side, Isaac eyed the planchette warily, but the thing didn’t even so much as twitch from where both it and the board had clattered off the table.

“I think that was a little more than we bargained for,” Scott said diplomatically. He grabbed Stiles about the waist and helped hoist him up to his feet.

“No, this is great,” Stiles said. He could feel phantom vibrations from when he helmet had been struck, but he shook his head and powered through. “I think we found exactly who’s been messing with Mr. Fields.”

“Yeah, and it could have done serious damage,” Isaac said from the floor. He turned an accusing glance toward Stiles. “I heard it. You were hit pretty hard.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles insisted. He took a step forward, but suddenly the floor seemed to turn ninety degrees and he missed. He would have fallen right back to the ground if Scott hadn’t been there to catch him.

Isaac lifted both eyebrows to silently gloat that his point had been proven.

Scott stared intently into Stiles’s eyes, probably checking for any pupil dilation. “I don’t think it’s a concussion, but maybe we should get you checked out. Just to be sure.”

“Scotty!” Stiles exclaimed. He pushed himself out of his best friend’s arms and willed his wobbly legs to support him out of sheer stubbornness—this was adrenaline and nerves, not a concussion! “How many times do I have to say I’m fine? I was wearing protective gear and everything.”

“Maybe you guys should come back another night,” Isaac tried.

“Or maybe we miss out on our one chance to actually communicate with this ghost.” He grabbed Scott by the shoulders and spun him around to force eye contact—an impressive feat with an alpha werewolf. “Come on, Scott. We don’t know how this works. What if it requires the perfect alignment of Venus in retrograde or something? If we come back and we can’t contact the ghost anymore, do we just leave Mr. Fields in the lurch?”

Scott seemed to be coming around, but he was still dubious.

“I’ll keep the helmet on and let you be an overprotective wolf on me. You even said you don’t think it’s a concussion. Please, let’s just stay.”

Scott cast an unsure glance at Isaac, who only replied with an almost imperceptible movement of his head. As if that determined something, Scott sighed. “We can stay for a while longer, but I insist you at least rest for a few minutes. Even with the helmet, you got hit hard, and that’s on top of a couple sleepless nights.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, but he waved his hand through the air. “Yes, Mom. I promise to lie down for a _couple_ minutes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted just one nice thing tonight, so I'm posting this chapter and the art I mentioned before. I'm upset and tired at what went on within 15 short miles from where I am. Don't let tyrants rule your lives, and choose accountability and compassion over lies and hate.
> 
> On a lighter note, I did the art myself. It's imperfect, but it's mine. (And first time using Flickr!) Next installment will be in three days.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles was being good. He even let Scott lead him to one of the nearby bedrooms so he could rest on something more comfortable than their ratty sleeping bags in the dining room.

He absolutely wouldn’t budge on letting Scott watch over him, though. He was _fine_ , dammit. So he shooed Scott out of the room, sending him to go check on their equipment or make sure Isaac didn’t pee his pants or whatever. Then he shucked off the lacrosse helmet and lay down wearily. Even on top of the covers, the thing was damn comfortable. And, with the lights off, he could see himself easily drifting off. 

Maybe he had been pushing it a little on the all-nighters lately.

He relaxed to the sounds of Scott and Isaac clomping throughout the house. Old buildings like these tend to creak and settle, but it was never as loud as two heavy-footed werewolves.

Stiles dutifully closed his eyes and let his mind settle on the experience they just had with the spirit board.

They contacted a real life ghost. (A real dead ghost?) Regardless, it was way more activity than he even hoped for without Lydia acting as a spiritual lightning rod. They’d asked questions and received—mostly—cogent responses. Plus, judging by what it had been spelling out at the end, he believed it was the same entity he’d experienced with Lyda.

 _My boy_. It had been scratched into the table when Lydia was here. 

He wondered what that meant. Was the spirit looking for a lost loved one? Parents separated from their children were some of the oldest ghost stories in existence. The phrase didn’t ping anything from his research, but Stiles couldn’t shake the feeling that it was important somehow.

The creaking and footfalls soon sounded louder and more hollow; Scott or Isaac must have decided to explore the floor above him.

Yet it didn’t make sense with the communication they got from Linny. Hers were the most direct answers they got. Was this spirit just that wild and changeable, or was it really two different spirits?

Stiles thought back to how the planchette glided smoothly and calmly with Linny’s answers, dancing playfully through the alphabet. Yet, after that its movements suddenly became jerking, almost aggressive. Very reminiscent of Lydia in a trance as she carved words into the table.

He shivered. Definitely different.

A hollow thunk right over his bed had Stiles startle from his macabre thoughts. Jeez, Scott or Isaac really had to be careful with the property if they didn’t want to accidentally break something with their werewolf strength.

At the sound of another, louder thunk, Stiles opened his eyes, ready to yell at them through the walls.

But his words died in his throat. 

Standing over his bed was a tall figure. Definitely male. Definitely not Scott or Isaac.

And it was looking right at him.

Stiles tried to call out, but all he could manage was a choked off gurgling noise. He was locked in a staring stalemate with the figure. His heart beat against his rib cage as he internally screamed at himself to move. Its hammering only increased its irregular tempo when the figure looked like it was about to open its mouth.

It wasn’t until he heard another werewolf thump, this time from his same floor, that he finally found the will to move.

Stiles turned around just long enough to reach for the bedside lamp and flick the switch. But as soon as he turned back to face the figure, it was already gone, and he was left in a tense silent few milliseconds before the bedroom door burst open. He let out an unmanly scream.

“Stiles!” It was Scott, followed closely by Isaac. “We heard your heart rate suddenly spike. Did something happen?”

Stiles gaped his mouth open and closed like a fish a few times before he finally found his voice. “Yeah,” he croaked. “I think something did.”

* * *

Surprisingly, it was Scott who was most freaked out by the news. By the time Stiles finished describing what he’d seen, Scott was pacing the room, antsy, eyes every now and then flashing red.

Isaac, on the other hand, stood silent and still, although he’d gone deathly pale over the course of the conversation.

“It’s fine,” Stiles said irritably. He was starting to feel like a broken record. “If anything, I was startled. Besides, this is the exact kind of stuff we came here for.”

“To have you confront a ghost by yourself?” Scott asked.

“To communicate,” Stiles insisted. “I think he was about to say something to me. He just got, you know. . . .”

“Distracted?” Isaac unhelpfully supplied.

“Performance anxiety,” Stiles finished. 

Scott merely hummed in thought, brow still furrowed in concern, but Stiles wasn’t done making his argument. 

“Besides,” he said, “I wouldn’t have been so startled if one of you wasn’t galloping across the floor above me. I thought the ceiling might cave in or something.”

Scott drew to a sudden stop, and Isaac stood up straighter. “I never went upstairs,” Scott said hesitantly.

“Then _you’re_ the one with big feet,” Stiles said, turning to Isaac. 

But Isaac just shook his head, looking like he was about to puke. “Stiles, we stayed together the whole time. On this floor.”

Stiles shook his head. “No, I know I heard footsteps overhead. If it wasn’t you two, then it had to be—”

As if on cue, another hollow thunk sounded overhead, and all three of them snapped their heads toward the ceiling.

Not a moment passed by before Scott darted out of the room and toward the stairs, followed closely by Isaac and then Stiles.

They knew exactly where to go. That sound had come from right above the room Stiles had been resting in, right next to Room 5 with the spirit board. Of course, after pounding up the stairs, around two corners, and in the smack dab middle of a wide corridor, the space was empty. Scott and Isaac drew to a stop, and Stiles detected the telltale cocked heads of two werewolves scenting the air.

“I don’t smell anything,” Isaac said.

Stiles huffed, moseyed to a line of switches on the wall, and flicked on each one of them to flood the whole hallway with light. “I’m not sure what you expected. Do ghosts even have a smell?”

Scott hummed like he was considering the question.

Stiles rolled his eyes. He supposed maybe it wasn’t that much of a stretch to assume there might be a scent trail. After all, something must have been substantial enough to make those footstep noises. Maybe a spirit could be solid up to a point.

Although, looking around now, Stiles could see rows of rooms, but it didn’t look like anyone was there now. In fact, he could see into a couple partially opened doorways, and—

The slight flutter of fabric out of the corner of his eye had Stiles freeze immediately. He absently smacked Scott’s arm to get his attention as he pivoted toward the spot.

There. He was sure he spotted it in a doorway at the other end of the hall. The door was halfway open, allowing light from the hallway to spill into the dark room. Something was in there.

Stiles immediately pushed forward, vaguely aware that Scott and Isaac were following intently behind him. When he got to the door, he noticed that this was one of the rooms under construction. The furniture had been cleared out, and there were wires and cables strewn all over the place.

With only the light from the hallway to see by, Stiles inched fully into the room. “Hello?” he called out with more bravado than he felt. “We’re just here to find out what you want.”

No answer. Stiles squinted into the darkness, hoping he could pick out the merest hint of something. A person. A spirit. Anything.

He heard the barest whisper of fabric. Stiles whirled around to that corner of the room. But then, suddenly, the lights in the hallway cut out all at once, plunging the whole room into impossible-to-see darkness. Stiles could just make out the eerie twin pinpricks of light from Scott and Isaac’s wolf eyes, but the red and yellow didn’t cast any light, so he was stranded in the dark.

Another rustle of fabric. Scott growled low as Isaac whimpered quietly.

“I need a light,” Stiles whispered. Good thing he had been right next to a pair of construction lamps when the room got dark. “Just let me fumble around here.”

A strong hand took a hold of his wrist just as he reached out. Stiles nearly had a heart attack until Scott quietly said, “Wait.” Dammit, Scotty! 

Some subvocal communication from Scott sent Isaac and his golden eyes back out into the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Stiles asked.

“Something’s wrong with that lamp,” Scott said. He didn’t let go of Stiles.

“It was put here for construction,” Stiles argued. “Probably rented too. I’m sure it’s fine—”

Then Isaac must have reached the switches, because the lights from the hallway came back on, and Scott let him go so he could reach for his phone. When Stiles turned the flashlight function on, he saw it.

The cable that pulled electricity into the lamp from the wall socket snaked along the floor. It was frayed in places, and some of the exposed wires were soaking in a mysteriously gross puddle of water. The thing was all metal. If he had touched it and turned it on—

“That can’t be safe,” Stiles said thickly. “How did you know?”

“I could hear the buzz of the current,” he said. Thank goodness for werewolf hearing. 

Then, a small, distressed, “Scott?” echoed from the hallway.

“Isaac.” Scott immediately grabbed Stiles’s arm and dragged him back out into the corridor.

Isaac was frozen still, paler than ever, focused on the stairs where they’d climbed up.

When Stiles followed his gaze, he gasped. A little girl, maybe seven or eight, swayed lightly to some tune only she could hear. Her focus wandered, like she was following the path of a butterfly. She looked so normal. If it weren’t for the fact that she was a little hazy and transparent, Stiles would have assumed some random kid had followed them in.

But no. This was why they came to the Thornewood Estate. This was a real spirit, and, judging by her apparent age and appearance, she looked somewhat familiar.

“Linny?” Scott asked hesitantly.

The girl looked up and flashed a genuine smile. “Hi, Scott!” she called.

Stiles stepped forward to say something—he wanted to be part of this conversation—but Scott pushed him into Isaac’s side and approached the girl on his own.

“Linny, I need you to tell me the truth. Were you messing with the lights just now? And the wires?” Scott was using his alpha voice right now, the one he’d learned from his mother’s stern patience as a nurse. Unlike literally every other alpha werewolf they’d come across (Derek included), Scott’s alpha voice was gentle, concerned, yet firm.

“I don’t touch the lights,” Linny said simply, as if that was all the explanation needed.

“That’s good,” Scott said, still advancing toward the girl. “Because it’s dangerous. My friend Stiles could have gotten really hurt.”

Figuring that was his cue to enter the conversation, Stiles stepped forward and opened his mouth, but Isaac yanked him back to his side with a curt whisper. “Let him handle this.”

Forget that. Stiles could talk just fine from right there. “There was someone else up here with us,” he called out. “Please tell us who.”

As if seeing Stiles for the first time, Linny looked right at him, and her smile dampened to a sad frown. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Scott stepped forward again. “Don’t be sad, Linny. We’re here to help.” He was within arm’s reach of her.

Linny seemed mildly soothed by Scott’s words. “Would you play with me for a little while?” she asked him.

“Yes,” Stiles said, earning an annoyed hiss from Isaac. “We’ll play with you if you can tell us more about the spirits here.”

She looked expectantly at Scott, who hesitated and glanced back to Isaac and Stiles. Even as Stiles nodded his encouragement, he could feel Isaac shaking his head frantically next to him. But Stiles proved to be the more convincing, because Scott seemed to take his lead.

“Okay, Linny. I’ll play for a bit.”

She smiled, let out a, “Thanks, Scott,” and held out her hand.

Scott took it. And they both disappeared.

“Scott!” Isaac was wolfed out and on the spot in an instant.

He sniffed everywhere, trying to pick up a scent. He followed his nose up and down the hall. He lingered in the spot they’d last seen Scott, breaths increasing their rhythm as he fruitlessly chased the scent. 

“Isaac,” Stiles called, trying to get his attention.

But Isaac ignored him and just continued his frantic searching. He went up and down the hallway, giving the dark room they’d been in a wide berth. He even thundered down the stairs and back up again.

“Isaac,” Stiles called again, this time louder. He pinched the bridge of his nose; he still had a headache. “You’re not going to find him that way. You guys already said the ghosts don’t have a scent.”

“No, no, no,” Isaac said. “He has to be here. I just have to find him.”

“Face it. The only way out is through. We have to finish the mission. Find what the spirit wants. In fact, think about how big a discovery this is. We just talked directly to Linny Walker. That means the spirit board worked.”

Now Stiles was on a roll. Isaac’s frantic sniffs faded from his mind as he paced the carpet, circling toward the stairs and biting his thumb in thought. “In fact, I think the shadow guy I saw a few minutes ago might have been Jason Richards. He’s the other spirit we contacted. I bet he was trying to say something too. Maybe we should use our phones as backup recording equipment. If we can get a real conversation going, just think about the implications for what this means for the world. We can communicate with the dead. Find out what they know and want. I wonder if there’s a kind of ghost network where they’re aware of other ghosts. Maybe they can tell us details about the past that have been lost to history. The implications are immeasurable.”

“Stop!” Isaac roared.

Stiles was startled—he’d never heard Isaac so aggressive since his first days as a werewolf—so he slid to a halt and grabbed the banister for support.

“You’re seriously talking about your stupid experiment right now?” Isaac railed. “Scott is gone. Disappeared. And you’re talking about recording equipment.”

Isaac was pissed. He wasn’t just glowing golden eyes right now. He was partially shifted, struggling to maintain control, as his sideburns thickened, his forehead protruded, and his teeth sharpened. Stiles took a half-step backwards.

“Don’t think I haven’t figured out why you’re obsessed about this particular case,” Isaac continued, inching closer to get in Stiles’s space. “You’re not the first person who’s fixated on communicating with the dead, thinking they’re in contact with whatever hole resides in their life.”

That brought Stiles up short. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Tell me you didn’t come here thinking you could find someone specific. Tell me you aren’t looking for your mom.”

“I—” Stiles suppressed a shudder. For some reason, it didn’t feel like they were alone anymore.

“Tell me you aren’t prioritizing your own agenda when Scott could be in very real danger. Wake up, Stiles. You’re not going to find her here!”

“I’m—” 

Again. A skirt out of the corner of his eye. A clipped heel step. Stiles was sure he saw it. The same translucent material that Linny had been but darker. The silhouette was unmistakable.

But before he could say anything, he felt a solid force shove at his shoulders, and he tipped straight over the banister into empty space.

Stiles had the vague notion that this was it. He would die if he hit his head from this height. That’s all he had time for.

Then he was jolted by a harsh pull. His ankle hurt. And his brain finally caught up with him enough to realize that he was upside down in midair.

“I didn’t do it!” Isaac cried. He clutched desperately at Stiles’s ankle and started pulling him up, inch by inch. His werewolf strength was the only reason Stiles’s brain wasn’t splattered across the bottom of the stairs. “I didn’t do it!”

When Isaac finally pulled his torso over the banister and back to safety, Stiles’s legs gave out from the adrenaline, and the two of them sunk to the floor in each other’s arms.

“I didn’t want you to—” Isaac choked out. He was outright sobbing now.

Stiles slowly pulled himself back from the precipice of a panic attack. With shaking hands, he wrapped his arms around Isaac’s shoulders. “I know,” he said, voice shaking too. “I saw it. It wasn’t you. I saw what pushed me.”

Isaac sobbed quietly into the crook of Stiles’s neck. His wolf instinctually needed the comfort of pack. “Fuck this house,” he finally whimpered.

Stiles agreed. Fuck this house. The wardrobe, the lamp, and now the stairs. Someone was out to get him. And before he launched whatever spirit straight out of this material plane, Stiles intended to find out why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are really kicking off. Any guesses about what Scott's doing right now?


	4. Chapter 4

Isaac and Stiles were still huddled together on the floor when that shadowy figure appeared once again. Isaac took one look at the dark silhouette and instinctually curled his whole body in a protective stance over Stiles, growling low. Stiles was actually a bit touched by the protective display, but they had to get some answers now.

“You’re Jason, right?” Stiles called out. After the close call he’d just had with the stairs and the banister, he was pretty impressed with his ability to sound calm right then.

Jason was just an outline in the hallway, a dark shape. Stiles couldn’t make out details on his face or his clothes, but he did see him give a silent nod in reply.

“Is Scott in danger? Will Linny hurt him?”

A head shake. No. That’s good, right? . . . Assuming they can trust him.

“Have you been behind these ‘accidents’? Or are you with the one responsible?”

A head shake.

“Have they hurt people before?”

A nod.

Stiles was tired. He was so tired of all this. He wanted to collect Scott and go home. “I have a method to expel whoever or whatever it is. But you need to give us more information to work with. Please.”

Jason stepped forward and held out his hand.

Isaac growled louder and pulled Stiles closer to his chest, prompting Jason to back up again and hold his arms up in a placating gesture.

“You can understand why we might be wary of that after what happened to Scott,” Stiles translated.

Jason’s silhouette seemed to consider for a moment, head cocked to the side in the most human display of thoughtfulness. Whatever happened to Jason, he seemed incapable of talking or even fully manifesting like Linny had before. Maybe he was weaker. Or maybe it had to do with the circumstances of his death. 

After a moment, Jason seemed to incline his head to the two of them, and then he started drifting smoothly down the stairs.

Stiles made to get up, but Isaac held him firm. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“I think he wants us to follow him,” Stiles replied like it was the most logical thing in the world. In his mind, it kind of was. “He’s our best bet at finding out who’s trying to kill us. And he seems to know Linny, so probably our best chance at getting Scott back.”

“Kill _us_ , huh,” Isaac said doubtfully. He still looked scared.

“Fine, me,” Stiles said. “Now are you going to stay here, or are you going to try keeping our mysterious third spirit from getting another chance?”

Isaac’s wide eyes were searching. He clearly wanted to find a course of action that didn’t have them following a literal ghost, but he soon deflated. He knew this was their only lead.

The two stood up and carefully followed Jason’s shadow down the stairs. Isaac kept one hand gripped around Stiles’s elbow, like he was ready to pull him from danger at a moment’s notice. 

Stiles kept an alert eye out for the moving skirt that had followed him the whole night. It seemed to spell trouble. The most aggravating thing about it was that Stiles had only ever caught glimpses out of the corner of his eye. So now, as he and Isaac followed Jason’s sedate shadow, his gaze kept darting around him, looking for the slightest glimpse of danger. His nerves were already frayed to the point of stress.

Jason led them to the manager’s office, the place where Mr. Fields’s uncle had conducted all his business while he ran the bed and breakfast. It looked like it hadn’t been touched much since the property went to Mr. Fields. Some files strewn about the desk and some empty filing cabinet drawers were the only indication of someone recently being there.

“Is this really the place?” Stiles asked. 

Suddenly Jason appeared again next to an old wooden cabinet, sending Stiles jumping straight into Isaac with an impatient “Dude!” But Jason didn’t move.

Figuring he wanted them to look inside the cabinet, Stiles stalked over and tried the door. Locked. He motioned for Isaac to use his werewolf strength to break the hinges, and Stiles silently sent an apologetic prayer to the late Mr. Fields for breaking his office furniture, swearing it was all in service to his haggard great-nephew.

Inside seemed to be decades and decades of old documents and junk. Maybe Mr. Fields’s uncle had been a pack rat. Or maybe he just held onto the old guests’ left-behind junk in case they came looking for it again. But the items inside were obviously from a variety of people and time periods. The cabinet was filled to the brim with stuff. Whatever, no judgment.

Stiles wasted no time digging right in. “Just let us know when we’re close,” he said absently to Jason.

As the two of them sorted through the stuff—seriously, Stiles found a ratty Beanie Baby, a glass eye, and even some love letters that looked like they predated the Cold War—Isaac bumped gently into Stiles’s shoulder. 

“About that stuff I said earlier—”

“No worries,” Stiles replied as he flipped quickly through some 90s-era photographs. “Figured it was all heat of the moment stuff.”

“Yeah, but that other stuff about your mom. . . .” Isaac fiddled with a bright plastic yo-yo on a broken string. 

“You technically weren’t wrong,” Stiles said quietly.

Isaac shrugged. “It was still overstepping. I know you were anxious about Scott; I could smell it.” Stiles put a scandalized hand over his heart, because privacy, please. “I know you were trying to figure things out. That’s how you handle stress.”

Stiles gave a noncommittal hum. “You ever think about it? Communicate with your mom, I mean. What if you could?”

Isaac shrugged. “Not sure. Didn’t really know her. I think I might if it was Camden, though. Though I’m a little afraid of what he might say. If he knew what Dad had become, or even what I’ve become.” He stared at his hands, curling his fingers in imitation of the sharp claws that can sprout with a single thought.

That activated something in Stiles’s memory. “You ever regret this life?” he asked.

“Do you?”

Stiles thought a moment. Earlier in the day Lydia had proclaimed how important her normal life was to her, that she wanted fewer dead bodies and more math. Stiles could relate to a degree. Their pack had seen more than its fair share of violence and monsters. He’d given a lot of his blood and sweat, and he’d even picked up several nightmares along the way. But, to miss the opportunity to protect their town? And their loved ones in it?

“Never,” he replied.

Isaac grinned, and Stiles swore he saw the glint of a fang. “Same.”

Soon after that, Stiles knew the moment he’d found the right object—his hand landed on an old leather journal—when Jason’s ghost suddenly appeared in front of his face. As usual, Stiles was startled, and he flung a fist outwards. Before he could stop himself, he made contact with Jason’s form, and the world instantly changed.

Stiles was assaulted with sounds and images. At first he couldn’t make sense of them—they were flitting through his brain so fast—but soon he could start to pick out patterns. Recognize certain repeating faces. 

He was more fleshed out, with actual details and colors, but Stiles could recognize that the person who featured most prominently was Jason. Images showed him eating and working and walking through the woods. It was almost like Stiles was viewing a movie reel of Jason’s memories.

He had been a guest of the bed and breakfast in its earlier days, a young man working a summer job in Beacon Hills, and he’d wanted a scenic place to stay before he returned to his college town. Thornewood had been beautiful during the day, but it changed at night.

At first Jason had attributed the noises he heard to an old house settling. He would blame the restless nights, the long days of work, even the other guests. But when he’d complain about the latter, the manager would just stare at him blankly because his was the only occupied guest room on that side of the house.

Restless nights started to turn into close accidents. He always swore he must have been seeing things out of the corner of his eye, that he simply imagined the wardrobe slowly creaking open. Until, on that last night. . . .

A sharp pinch on his arm launched Stiles back into the present. Suddenly he was blinking in the light of the manager’s office, heart pumping fast. Isaac was staring at him with concern, and only then did Stiles notice that he had a light scratch on his arm from one of Isaac’s claws.

“D-did I go anywhere?” he asked, thinking about Scott’s disappearance.

Isaac shook his head. “No, you just kind of stiffened up, and then your heart was beating too fast. I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anything else to snap you out of it.”

The scratch on his arm wasn’t even bleeding, so he shrugged it off. There were more important things right now. “I know what Jason’s deal is.” He started flipping through the journal. Jason couldn’t communicate, so he’d wanted them to read the journal he left behind when he died. Of course, Stiles’s own clumsiness forced him to use the more straightforward method of looking directly into his mind.

In the last entry, Stiles found the exact passage that corroborated the memories he’d experienced. He read it aloud to Isaac: 

_I know it sounds mad, and no one will believe me, but I’m absolutely sure of it this time. It doesn’t even come close to the glimpses I caught when the ladder fell on me. Or even when the gardener’s weed killer “accidentally” spilled into my food. I don’t think any of them were accidents, and it certainly wasn’t the gardener. Because I’ve seen her. I see her every time something happens, even where it’s impossible for someone to be. If some spectre wishes me ill, then I’ll leave as soon as it’s morning. I’ll leave Thornewood behind and never look back_.

“He never hurt himself,” Isaac said.

Stiles closed the journal carefully. “No. The ‘her’ he’s referring to must have been an older ghost. I’ve seen her too, and not just in Jason’s memories.” It was the same figure he’d caught glimpses of when he’d darted into the dark room, the same figure he’d seen a split second before he nearly fell from the second floor: Jason had seen a woman dressed in black.

But more than the mysterious ghostly presence looked familiar in Jason’s memories. Stiles fingered the charms in his pocket as he thought. In fact, there was a setting he knew pretty well.

Stiles darted from the room, ignoring Isaac’s startled shout. He wasn’t worried. Isaac wouldn’t be far behind him.

The manager’s office was close to the main entrance to the house, likely so he could keep an eye out for guests checking in. But Stiles had a feeling that they would find even more answers in the room Jason had been staying in back then.

As soon as Isaac realized where they were going, he groaned. “Oh no. Don’t tell me.”

Stiles smirked as he slid to a stop right outside Room 5. “It’s funny how things work out.”

He pushed the door open. With all the excitement of the night, he half-expected the room to have changed dramatically, but most of their mess was the same as they’d left it. Furniture pushed to the walls. Abandoned spirit board and planchette on the floor. Wardrobe looming over everything. Camera lying in pieces on the floor.

Dammit, wait. She must have been there already, because Stiles definitely remembered leaving the room with the camera equipment intact. Now he’ll have to grovel for Danny’s forgiveness. But first thing’s first.

Jason’s shadowy figure had beaten them to the room, lingering right next to the heavy wardrobe. Good. That corroborated Stiles’s theory.

“Could you push the wardrobe out of the way?” Stiles asked Isaac. 

He got a short bewildered look in reply, but Isaac complied quickly enough. Isaac braced his hands on two sides and carefully slid it across the floor. The thing was solid and old, and it must have weighed a ton judging by the awful screeching sound it made as it dragged across the floorboards. But Isaac managed to move it without any undue strain.

Sometimes it really paid off to hang out with a bunch of werewolves. 

Once Isaac slid the wardrobe away and was wiping the dust from his hands, he stood next to Stiles as they both gaped at what it uncovered. A creepy old trapdoor in the floor.

“Three guesses where this goes,” Stiles said. He stepped over to it and reached for the handle set into the wood.

“How is this even here?”

Stiles shrugged and tugged at the handle; it didn’t give easy. “Mr. Fields said that this room underwent a lot of construction over the years.” He tugged again. “It was a parlor and a bunch of other stuff. Maybe things got lost over the years.” He did one long sustained pull, grunting the entire time. Man, this thing wouldn’t budge.

Isaac shooed him away from the door and punched straight through where the bolt was. His smirk was too self-satisfied, but at least he pulled the door open himself. 

The space inside was pitch black. Even when Stiles pointed his phone’s flashlight into the darkness, it looked like some sort of primordial hell dimension into nothingness. And the smell wasn’t any better. It was like rotten wood and rusted metal.

Isaac reared back away from the hole. “There’s wolfsbane down there.”

“What?” Stiles desperately wanted to look inside, but the hole was as dark as ever. 

Why would there be wolfsbane inside a secret basement hidey hole inside this posh mansion? Mr. Fields seemed to believe in ghosts plenty fine, but judging by the records he’d read during his uncle’s tenure as owner, there was no way he was truly in the know about the supernatural.

The room itself was the biggest clue, though. Sure, Mr. Fields’s uncle renovated a lot of surfaces in the eighties, but the major construction changes predated him. This had been a spare room for years. But the fact that the wardrobe conveniently hid this trap door? That couldn’t have been a coincidence. It’s almost as if it had been placed here specifically because the trap door had been built here. Judging by the smells and hollow darkness below, the space inside was large. Sectioning off a piece of the basement or carving out extra secret space would have been a large project. It wouldn’t have been easily renovated. It would have interfered with some of the structures of the house.

No, something like this would have had to be _built_. A secret space for not just hunters, but specifically werewolf hunters. Laid into the very foundations of the Thornewood Estate.

Stiles realized who this was originally for, and he turned to tell Isaac exactly that, when suddenly _she_ was there. A ghostly skirt standing silently right next to where they crouched. The movies lied. Instead of billowing Victorian skirts, her dress was sleek and straight, her shoulders stiff and proud, a severe monolith cutting through the light.

He barely let out a panicked breath before he felt that force again. It pushed him right off balance and into the hole.

Isaac’s reflexes were quick; he lunged with both arms to grab at Stiles. But he wasn’t quick enough to keep himself from tumbling right into open air too. Stiles barely had time to process what was happening before Isaac pulled him closer and flipped them both over.

Then they both crashed to the ground, Isaac breaking Stiles’s fall when he landed first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, there's only one chapter left.
> 
> People be like, "Would you spend the night in a haunted house for a million dollars?" And I would laugh in their faces, because I would do it for zero dollars. What deal would you take?


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles was winded. Even though he hadn’t hit the ground directly, his everything hurt. With a bit more effort than he was comfortable with, he managed to roll off Isaac and lie on the ground, trying to concentrate on nothing more than dragging air into his lungs. He didn’t think he’d broken anything. A quick check proved he could at least wiggle all his limbs. He’d been lucky to get out of that with only major bruises.

With a sickening realization, he couldn’t say the same for Isaac, though. With shaking fingers he scrambled for his phone—miraculously it survived the fall and still had its flashlight activated; Stiles guessed the rapidly forming bruise on his hip had to do with that. 

Still shaking, Stiles managed to get the meager beam of light to shine on Isaac’s form. It didn’t look good. He’d broken several limbs in the fall.

Panic burst over Stiles. “Isaac,” he called. The word barely made it past his throat. Oh god. Why wasn’t he moving? “Isaac!”

Isaac suddenly gasped out and shifted. “Fuck,” he said. With slow, jerking motions, his body slowly righted itself. Stiles assumed that the sickening series of cracks he heard were Isaac’s bones starting to heal as they sorted themselves into their proper places. “Hold on.”

Isaac was healing slowly, likely due a combination of the heavy fall and the traces of wolfsbane in the room. But Stiles wasn’t sure they had that long; they weren’t the only ones down there. 

By the dim light from his phone, he could see the woman in black already moving toward him. He cursed and fumbled for the charms in his pocket. If he could move quickly, maybe he can get it around her neck. He just had to make sure not to fumble. Despite all evidence pointing to the likelihood.

Between his shaking hands and anxious wheezing, Stiles had barely managed to pull out the knotted cord before she was already bearing down on him. She grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him up. Stiles fought. He tried to pry her fingers out of his clothes, but she was made of some other substance entirely. Her solid form was only anchored where she chose to hold him.

Her eyes were wet, like she’d been crying, but her expression was determined. She cast one hate-filled glare at where Isaac was still pulling himself together before she turned to Stiles and her expression softened. Her sad eyes met his fear-filled ones. She uttered a soft, “My boy,” then lifted her other hand to caress his cheek. “I promise no pain.”

As soon as she touched him, Stiles was thrust straight into her memories. He struggled to make sense of the images and information that flew at him with overwhelming velocity. All he got were snips of quick understanding.

She was there when the house was built. It had been a wedding present from her husband. She chose the land. She oversaw the blueprints. She insisted on building their lives in the forest at the edge of the small sleepy town. 

Their lives were peaceful, even if they weren’t particularly happy. Elias doted on her. Called her his beloved Josephine. But the real love of her life was the son they had. The sweetest little boy grew into a strapping young man.

He was barely grown when he took an interest in his heritage. He trained for his first hunt. She knew it was too soon, but he was so ready to grow up. Then, when he didn’t return and they later discovered his body in the woods, her love soured into hate for the monsters that took her son away. Why should they prosper when she lost what was most precious to her? She fixated and hated, and her life withered away until that hate and possessiveness were all she had left.

Decades passed, and still she lingered, always consumed with misery. She watched the house change hands, undergo construction, and shelter strangers.

When she saw young men pass through who reminded her of her boy, she fixated on them. Watched them. The bitter pain of losing her son still lingered in her heart. And when she recognized kindred spirits in them—those who ached for their lost mothers, those at the mercy of heinous monsters—she yearned to protect them from all the world’s evils.

But the world is messy. Life is short. Hopelessness and pain will always linger. They didn’t know what was good for them. These young men, so like her son, had no clue how fragile they were. The only way to truly protect them was to make them like her: untouched by time, already kissed by death. So she happily took them.

Almost a hundred years ago, the house had been her wedding gift. Built on the edge of the forest, right where she could keep a watchful eye on the Hales. Her name would be Thornewood, but she would always consider herself an Argent.

In the midst of Josephine’s flashing memories, a deep rumble vibrated through Stiles’s consciousness. At first he thought it came from her, but then the rumble got louder, cutting through the images until it consumed everything in a bone-grinding roar. Stiles recognized it as a call from his pack, and that’s when the memories finally shattered around him.

Stiles came back to himself at the tail end of Isaac’s roar. Somehow he’d ended up on the floor, in the opposite corner of the secret basement. Josephine’s ghost had been crouched next to him, but now she was standing and turning to face Isaac, who was wolfed out and bravely staring her down.

It was still dark, but Stiles could make out the echoes of what the room once was in Josephine’s memories. The furniture hadn’t been touched in nearly a hundred years. Cobwebs and rust decorated the guns and weapons on the wall, but it still held all the tools of a werewolf hunter’s trade.

Josephine reached for one of the hanging weapons and drew a wicked-looking knife with a practiced hand. “What’s one more dog to put down,” she murmured, her deep voice belying her transparent silhouette.

“Oh no you don’t, lady,” Stiles said as he pushed himself to his feet. So what, there was a murderous ghost between him and a weakened werewolf. He’d seen worse odds.

Before she could advance on Isaac, who was still picking himself off the floor, Stiles threw the first thing within reach—his own cell phone—straight at the back of her head.

Unfortunately, in a twist that he should have foreseen, the thing sailed straight through her ghostly form and landed with an unfortunate clatter clear across the room. Josephine didn’t even react.

Instead she raised the knife and threw a practiced slash at Isaac. He barely dodged it, throwing his arms out wide, then followed up with a swipe of his claws. His attack went straight through without harming her. Stupid ghosts. Stupid unfair advantage.

Stiles knew he had to do something. If she wasn't solid enough for them to counterattack, let alone put a ghost-banishing charm over her neck, they had to find a different tack. Stiles grabbed the next thing within reach—a dusty wooden chair—and swung it in a giant arc, this time aiming for the knife.

His aim was perfect, and he knocked the knife to the floor tangled in the chair legs. But the thrust left him with his back exposed, right in line of her furious gaze. He’d seriously miscalculated.

“Can’t you see I’m trying to save you?” she fumed. 

Isaac leaped forward, snarling, but with a flick of her wrist, he went sailing backwards and crashed into the wall.

Josephine reached out, and Stiles tensed, expecting to be assaulted with another wave of memories, but instead she flicked her wrist again. Stiles felt the chair twisted out of his grip, then he too was pulled backwards to another wall. He barely touched it when the chair flew straight at him, legs first, and slammed home with a loud bang. He was effectively pinned against the wall with chair legs on either side of him.

Stiles wrapped both arms around the dusty wood and pushed it away as hard as he could, but try as he might, he only managed to shift it a few wobbling inches before it slammed back against the wall.

“Seriously?” Stiles huffed.

Telltale snarls from Isaac across the room signalled that he and Josephine had resumed their knife fight. These were bad odds. Isaac couldn’t land a hit because this ghost could apparently go partially intangible at will. And assuming the knife was caked in wolfsbane, any hit she would land against Isaac could prove fatal. Stiles could even hear Isaac’s breathing starting to become labored and wheezy, no doubt because of the wolfsbane in the room in general.

They needed a different strategy. And quickly. Forget whether she’s solid or not, Stiles had to use the charms he’d made and trust that those Romanian witches knew what they were talking about.

For one heartstopping moment, Stiles couldn’t find the knotted cords in his jeans pocket. But then, in the basement gloom, he saw exactly where he dropped them when he’d been accosted by Josephine’s ghost. No sweat, he could get them.

Stiles dropped to the floor, slithering out from between the chair legs as he went. Isaac and Josephine were dancing dangerously close to where he needed to go, so he had to be fast.

Keeping low to the floor, Stiles darted toward the charms, arms outstretched to grab even one. But the movement didn’t go unnoticed.

Josephine saw him reach out, and with a screech of anger, she temporarily abandoned Isaac to throw a hand out toward Stiles.

The heavy scrape of furniture had Stiles bite out an, “Oh shit!” then scramble backwards as fast as he could. It wasn’t just a single chair flying at him this time. It was one of the two-hundred-pound solid oak tables.

Stiles didn’t have time to think. He threw himself into the corner where two walls met the floor and folded himself as small as possible, arms curled around his head. The impact of the table hitting the wall seemed to shake the very foundations of the house.

“Stiles!” Isaac cried.

“I’m alive!” Stiles called. It was close. The gap was tight, but he managed not to pick up any extra injuries.

What’s even better, he managed to snag one of the ghost-banishing charms too!

Josephine’s ghost was now spewing a tirade of anti-werewolf insults at him. “You stupid child. How can you not see the danger these evil beasts pose? It’s clear more than ever that you need to be saved from yourself.”

“All right, that’s it.” Stiles wiggled himself out from under the toppled table.

Josephine was waiting for him, although Isaac was doing his best to distract her by simultaneously attacking and dodging the knife in her grip. However, with a flick of her wrist, he went flying back against the other wall. Isaac went down hard and had to sit for a moment, breathing heavily. The wolfsbane in the air was still taking its toll on him.

Josephine returned her furious expression on Stiles. He wanted to shrink back, but he held his ground, charm grasped tightly in one fist.

“I saw what’s going on inside your head,” Stiles declared, “and you’re a product of your own hate.”

“These monsters took everything from me,” she said, taking a step toward him. Good, let her come. “And they’ll take everything from you too.”

“The feuds you’re obsessed over aren’t even relevant anymore,” he argued. “Argents and Hales get along now, for the most part. You could at least take a cue from the living descendents of your family.”

“Not my family, not anymore.” She was even closer now. Only a few more steps, and they’ll be within reach of each other.

As she approached Stiles, she held the knife loosely in one hand. But Stiles was so tense he could feel his fingers shaking at his side. He felt like he was in an old Western standoff. One wrong move, or too late to pull the trigger, and he would lose. He needed some help.

“But we could be family,” she continued. Her expression took on that dreamy sadness once again. “I’ve seen into your heart and recognized the emptiness there.”

She took a step forward. “You’re a son without a mother. I’m a mother without a son.” Another step. “We’re a perfect match.”

Stiles took a deep, steadying breath. He thought about Lydia, who wanted to distance herself from their supernatural life. He thought about his dad and Scott and how the supernatural has upended their lives, both the good and the bad. Then he realized something. After so many years immersed in the freaky side of Beacon Hills, it was getting hard to separate what constituted normal life. All he knew was where his closest loved ones sat: perfectly enmeshed between the two worlds.

“I already have a mom,” he said. “Her name is Melissa. She gives good advice, she married my dad last year, and she raised my brother in all but blood.” He sent a pointed look toward Isaac. “Raised him to be the alpha of our pack.” 

Isaac roared out a call. Stiles wasn’t a werewolf, but even he could recognize a howl for one’s own alpha. It always seemed to transcend distance and sound. Wherever Scott was, he was sure he would hear it.

Stiles smiled. “Thanks for the offer of murder and all, but I think I’ll stick with my werewolf family.”

Josephine’s face twisted, but before she could reply, an impossibly strong gust of wind ripped through the room.

The answering roar was familiar. Almost out of nowhere, Scott appeared wolfed out and claws swinging, already parrying Josephine’s angry knife thrust.

Stiles seized the opportunity, while she was distracted by Scott, to leap toward Josephine’s partially turned back. He gripped the charm with both hands and thrust it forward to loop the cord over her head and neck.

It rested on her throat for a brief second. Then Josephine stiffened, and pent-up energy burst from her ghostly form. Between one blink and the next, Josephine had disappeared, charm and all, leaving the knife to clatter anticlimactically to the ground.

“Holy crap,” Stiles said. With the tension of that battle suddenly gone, all energy left him, so he slumped against the wall for support. They did it.

“Scott, Isaac,” he called, “either of you need first aid for wolfsbane?”

“We’re good,” Scott said as he pulled Isaac to his feet.

Good. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

* * *

After the high-energy faceoff against Josephine Thornewood, the follow-up with Jason and Linny was almost a letdown.

Scott explained the whole business about him disappearing with Linny. Well, Scott had called it a “misunderstanding,” which prompted Isaac to immediately whap him upside the head.

Apparently Linny, who’d been haunting the place since their grandparents were young, had long ago known Josephine’s M.O. She knew she especially hated werewolves, and when she found Scott to be friendly and nice, she wanted to take him someplace safe to hide from Josephine’s wrath. Sounded like it mostly involved trying to talk him into playing hopscotch until he heard Isaac’s howl.

After Stiles and Isaac gave Scott a rundown of their side of the events, Stiles managed to flag Jason and Linny down to explain what the charms were meant to do. And then he gave them a choice.

“I don’t truly know where you’ll end up, but these are supposed to help you move on to the next plane. Do you want it now? Or I’ll be back if you give Mr. Fields or the next occupants a hard time.”

Jason’s shadowy silhouette seemed to ponder for a moment. Then, with a weary shrug of his shoulders, he gestured for the charm. Stiles held it aloft and let Jason duck his head into the loop. Unlike Josephine, when he disappeared, it was like releasing a deep breath.

Stiles held out his last charm to Linny. “You want it?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be good. Can I play a little longer?”

“Sure, kid, I feel generous.” Stiles sighed. He was too tired for this. “When it comes to human witnesses, though, try to keep a little plausible deniability in there.”

“Yes I will!” she cheered. Somehow Stiles doubted she really knew what he was asking for.

Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just don’t make anyone else disappear.”

After that, they bid their goodbyes to Thornewood Estate. While Stiles and Isaac quickly shoved everything into the back of the Jeep, Scott gave a special farewell to Linny. The softy even went so far as to promise to come back and play with her sometimes. Yeah, big scary alpha here.

When they were ready to go—Stiles and Scott in the Jeep and Isaac in his own car—Scott insisted on taking the wheel, citing Stiles’s four nights of sleepless investigation. Stiles only relented because he really was that tired. But that didn’t stop him from grumbling about it as he slammed the passenger door closed.

Maybe he really should ride shotgun more often, because the headrest did feel mighty comfortable to his sleep-starved noggin.

He was already fighting a losing battle with his eyelids when Scott started the car. As the purr of the engine completely pulled him under, he could only make out a few snippets of Scott and Isaac saying their goodnights through rolled-down windows.

“—Know it was hard for you, man. So thanks—”

“—Wouldn’t have faced my fears if Derek hadn’t insisted—n’t leave him alone—”

Stiles was out of it, so he didn’t see the sun rising through the trees. He just let himself sleep off the exhaustion of the night. He let himself cast away the danger and the fear and the . . . wait. What was that about Derek?

When Stiles woke, he was in his own bed at Miss Pi. No memory of how he got there. He just let himself luxuriate in the warm sheets and appreciate the sunlight streaming through the closed blinds. His new resolution right then and there was to spend more mornings sleeping in.

Then, mid-yawn, he felt a piece of paper stuck to his forehead. He quickly batted it off his face then squinted at the note.

It was a printout from the MSPI homepage. The phrase “network of supernatural consultants” was underlined. And in the same pen was Isaac’s messy scrawl: _So I can expect an equal cut of your commission, right?_

Stiles sucked in a deep breath. “Dammit, Isaac!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, finished! I was running out of steam trying to bang the ending out.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading this. I'm not sure when I'll next post, but in the meantime I'm happy to chat in the comments. Or, if you like stupid jokes and cute cats, come say hi at mrdcoolblue.tumblr.com.


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